1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to online messaging and more specifically to visualizing public conflicts contained within online messages posted by social media users on social media websites.
2. Description of the Related Art
The proliferation of online social media websites or forums has provided users with an ability to share their opinions and ideas at unprecedented speed. While social media users may propagate their opinions and ideas independently, public conflicts often occur when users hold opposite opinions and want to achieve incompatible goals. For example, during an election year, users supporting different political parties may fight via social media forums to advance their own political views. As another example, in social media marketing, different manufacturers of competing products may launch adversarial ad campaigns to win a larger market share of social media users.
In addition, some topics or events naturally provoke public conflicts and involve many social media users. For example, an election debate may trigger a series of public online conflicts because of the different political views being advanced by the candidates of the different political parties. On the social media websites, some users watching the debate will show their support by providing positive comments regarding their political party's candidate, while other users watching the debate will attack the opposing candidate with negative words and sentiments, which leads to heated online discussions on social media websites.